Beth Hahn

Research Interests

Beth's research interests at ALWRI were generally focused around the ecological issues related to wilderness stewardship at multiple spatial scales, with emphases on:

  • ecological restoration
  • wildlife
  • climate change
  • disturbance ecology

Additional areas of interest included adaptive management and monitoring. Beth was interested in these same topics in an international context.

Education

  • Ph.D., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology / Resource Ecology and Management, 2007. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Dissertation: Socially-facilitated habitat selection by two migratory forest songbirds
  • B.A., Physical Geography, 1998. Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Background

Beth began working as a research wildlife biologist on a variety of field projects in California, Washington, North Dakota, Montana, Texas, Alaska, and Michigan from 1999-2006. From 2001-2007, she also taught statistics, global change, and writing at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan and the University of Montana, Missoula, Montana.

From 2007 until her start at the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute as an ecologist in 2012, Beth worked as the Regional Wildlife Ecologist for the Northern Region of the Forest Service, based in Missoula, Montana. In addition to her work for the Forest Service and at the Institute, since 2008 Beth has also worked intermittently with the Forest Service Office of International Programs, the US Agency for International Development, and the US Department of State as a technical consultant on diverse natural resource management projects in Africa: Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Liberia, Zambia, Nigeria, Madagascar, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Tanzania, Angola, the Lake Chad Basin, and the West Africa region.

Research Projects

Beth's work at ALWRI focused on three primary themes:

  1. Contributing to the development of an evaluation framework to address whether ecological restoration actions should be taken in wilderness to mitigate, for example, the effects of climate change.
  2. Leading an effort to synthesize the issues associated with wildlife science and management within wilderness.
  3. Continuing to provide analytic support and technical assistance to inform natural resource management programming by US Government agencies working internationally.